


And the Blackbird Sings

by teamchaosprez



Series: Overwatch 1920s AU [6]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Amputation, Childhood Friends, Explosions, Gen, Mutual Pining, Pining, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, World War I
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-20
Updated: 2017-02-20
Packaged: 2018-09-25 17:17:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,103
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9833042
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/teamchaosprez/pseuds/teamchaosprez
Summary: The year is 1917, and Angela Ziegler is no longer a child. Belongs to my 1920s AU.





	

**Author's Note:**

> ok hello yes this is the direct sequel to New Beginnings if you wanna check that one out first. there will be another oneshot focusing on fareeha and angela in which they actually finally start their relationship
> 
> ALSO, THE IDENTITY OF ANGELA, HANA, AND LENA'S FINAL ROOMMATE IS REVEALED

The year was 1917, and Angela Ziegler was no longer a child.

She had been attending medical school to realize her dreams of becoming a doctor. Since coming to America from Switzerland thirteen years prior at the age of eleven, she had been very happy and had flourished under the care of her family and her dearest friend (and slight crush), Fareeha Amari, and her mother. Europe had been at war for three years, but Angela was twenty four years old and a student in America; she had better things to worry about, she thought, even when the United States became involved in the fight and Fareeha’s mother, Ana Amari, was enlisted as a sniper.

She had no doubt that Ana would return home unscathed when she was done fighting; she was a skilled sniper and had been a captain of the Egyptian Army at one point, before moving to America to find a better life for herself and Fareeha. Angela wasn’t worried about Ana whatsoever, knowing that she could handle herself even if she was getting up there in years and probably would not be at her prime for much longer… until, of course, Fareeha stormed into her apartment with a look of rage on her face but grief in her eyes. “What happened?” the student questioned softly, hurrying over to her friend and gently taking hold of both of her hands.

Fareeha didn’t move away, but she refused to meet Angela’s eyes, her teeth clenched. “My mother’s entire squadron was shot down by a German sniper,” she said, her voice flat and unfeeling with the exception of a small break on the last syllable. “Nobody found her body, but the chances of her surviving the encounter were little to none. She’s either a prisoner of war or dead.”

Sorrow blossomed in Angela’s chest. She had been rather close to Ana, and the idea of her dying was a painful one - the likely reality of it was terrible. “Oh, Fareeha, I’m so sorry,” was all she could think to say, wrapping her arms around the younger woman protectively and holding her close. Fareeha didn’t push her away, but she wouldn’t return the embrace, not that the student could necessarily blame her. “Here, why don’t you come stay with me for a few days? I can’t imagine you would want to go back to the house all alone, and I can help. Or try to.”

The taller of the two shook her head as she stepped away, the pain in her eyes turning to a steely determination. “No. I’m enlisting in the army. I’m going to go fight in the war and avenge my mother,” she declared with a heat behind her words that Angela had never heard before and wasn’t sure that she liked. “I don’t care how long it takes me, and I don’t care if I get hurt doing it. So don’t try to stop me on those or any grounds, Angela.” She began walking away, and the student was ready to grab onto and stop her, but she was only headed for the window to look out at the city.

She didn’t know what to do. She knew that enlisting would be foolish; the fighting was harsh, and so many had died already. The Great War was brutal and brutish, and Angela swallowed thickly at the idea of her dear Fareeha trying to fight in it. It had already taken Ana - she didn’t want another Amari woman to be lost to the struggle. Still, she remembered something she had read in the newspaper about the military needing more people to help with medical efforts. Maybe…

“If you go to fight in Europe, I’m going with you,” she said as she hurried over to her friend to lean on the wall next to the window and watch her with narrowed blue eyes. “I hate the war, but like hell I’m letting you become a soldier without me. I may not be done with medical school yet, but surely I can do some sort of good.” Fareeha turned when she finished talking in order to look her over with searching brown eyes, and Angela stood her ground.

“I don’t think you’ll last very long. You’re too compassionate. People are getting horrifically hurt, Angela, and just following me isn’t a good reason to put your sanity and maybe even your life on the line,” she finally spoke, and her strong arms wrapped around the medical student in a tight hug. The older woman was surprised for just a moment by the sudden affection from her very distraught crush, but didn’t hesitate to hold her in return. “But if you really want to… it would be a lot easier on me to have you nearby and know that if I get hurt you’ll be there to help.”

“That’s what I’m here for, Fareeha.”

* * *

 

As a medical student, Angela had been trained to not get emotionally attached to her patients, and to be numb to all sorts of blood and injuries. Generally, she was very good at it, but it was a lot different when she suddenly lived and worked in such close quarters with the people that she was treating. Although she tried very hard not to, she made friends - and among the closest of those friends were the two men that always seemed to be getting themselves into scrapes, Gabriel Reyes and Jack Morrison. They never had any life threatening injuries, but she had treated several lacerations and broken bones between the two of them, and they never complained when her procedures were painful.

She didn’t see Fareeha as often as she had generally hoped, as the Egyptian woman was a smart and skilled soldier and had only ever gotten hurt enough to need to be treated once - and though Angela was glad that meant she was keeping out of harm and taking care of herself, she couldn’t help but feel fairly lonely in the times when she didn’t have Fareeha to talk to. Jack and Gabriel helped with that somewhat, but not enough.

Angela had been wrapped up in her work one evening, making her rounds around the medical tent after treating some minor injuries on Jack and making some small talk with the two of them. She was in one corner of the tent when she noticed somebody throwing something against the side and making the material flutter, and though her logic told her that it was a bad idea, she ducked underneath the side of the tent to investigate what was going on.

And a little ways away, standing tall with a grin on her face, was Fareeha.

The good doctor barely resisted the urge to let out a girlish squeal as she ran for her friend, colliding into her with a bit of a grunt and clinging to the younger woman like a baby koala. She hid her face against Fareeha’s shoulder as she was held close, her hair stroked and the only sounds in the quiet evening being the slow breathing of the two women and the distant light clamor of the medical tent. “Where is the rest of the soldiers? You can’t have been sent here alone,” she spoke softly, but did not budge from her position for fear that Fareeha would leave as soon as she did.

“We’re moving to another location and stopped nearby, so I wanted to sneak away and say hello,” Fareeha shifted slightly so that they could make eye contact and gave Angela a gentle smile. “Are you doing well? Nobody has been giving you too much trouble, have they? There are rumors spreading about a guardian angel working in this med tent and keeping those that fall under her care alive. I haven’t doubted for a second that it was you.”

“I don’t know about guardian angel, but things are going well. The soldiers I work with are so much more polite than I had expected, and I really think that I am doing good work--”

She was interrupted from her sentence by a sudden explosion from behind her, and for a split second she was completely unsure of how to react, in total shock. Fareeha grabbed onto her and pulled her to the ground, and she could only turn her head ever so slightly to see that a massive fire had started where her medical tent once was, debris and bleeding bodies scattering the ground.

For the first time in her months working with injured soldiers in the Great War, for the first time in all the horrific scenes she had seen go into play, Angela’s emotions responded in the form of an agonized and bloodcurdling scream.

Fareeha slapped her hand over her mouth, and she struggled to pull away from her friend despite knowing, logically, that she was just trying to keep her quiet in case the people that had set off the bomb were still in the vicinity. After seeing the pleading look in the younger woman’s eyes, she stilled and struggled to force down the sobs threatening to spill from her mouth.

After almost a minute, Fareeha rolled off of her and took gentle hold of her hand, and Angela had forced her emotions back down and settled into a much more efficient mindset. She couldn’t afford to let her feelings get the best of her yet; doctors weren’t supposed to do that, period. She needed to keep working for the moment, so that she could help anybody that had survived the blast and prevent any more bloodshed. “Come on, we need to look for survivors,” she spoke in a flat and demanding tone.

The only response Fareeha gave was a nod.

* * *

 

Angela lost many friends in that explosion, and when she found Gabriel Reyes bleeding out in a ditch near the remains of the medical tent, she decided with a steely determination that she was not going to lose another one. He was missing two legs and an arm, and begged her to let him die, but the good doctor allowed herself to be selfish. She fixed tourniquets over the stumps where his limbs had been, and convinced Jack - who was much more willing to let him go - to carry him back to the truck where Fareeha was waiting.

That evening at the hospital where she was now stationed for the sake of her psychological wellbeing, Angela Ziegler worked harder than she ever had in her life. There were dark circles underneath her eyes and she needed to think on what she previously could have done automatically, but she was able to stop Gabriel’s bleeding, to fit him for fancy prosthetics designed by her engineer friend Torbjorn Lindholm, and successfully made it so that he could live his life almost completely as normal… just with more trauma and quite possibly chronic pain.

She had told herself that she didn’t want to lose another friend, but it seemed that even though she saved his life, she still lost him. He stopped talking to her. Whenever she tried to make conversation, he would just glare daggers in her direction. He was angry, bitter - Jack told her that it was only because he wanted to die so desperately, but that didn’t take the sting away, and she doubted that anything would. This entire situation just kept getting more and more painful, and Angela didn’t know how much longer she could continue carrying through with it.

* * *

 

In June of 1918, five months before the Great War ended, she was discharged from the military and sent home on account of her declining mental health, and she began spending her nights thinking of the soldiers that she might have been able to save if not for her own problems.

In the year she was gone, she had lost her apartment, and had to move in with a wise man several years younger than her that had left a monastery in favor of trying to help people living amongst the public. His name was Tekhartha Zenyatta, and he became one of Angela’s closest friends - he always seemed to know what to say to help her, and he had recently begun studying at medical school to become a nurse, so Angela was capable of helping him with his studies.

“As long as you continue to move forward and keep peace and harmony as your goals, everything will turn out just fine,” Zenyatta was fond of telling her, often accompanied by a gentle smile and a friendly pat on the shoulder.

Angela wasn’t as sure, but always, she returned the smile and nodded softly.

**Author's Note:**

> comments would be appreciated, and please do look at the rest of my au because i have been working very hard on it and really love it a lot


End file.
